An introduction to the CBA Business and Human Rights Guide with Josh Scheinert and Eric Szeto.
Actionable guidance on BHR. An introduction to the CBA's Business and Human Rights Guide with one of its principal authors, Josh Scheinert and investigative journalist, Eric Szeto, known for his work with W5 CTV and CBC Market Place.
What lawyers need to know to avoid business complicity in human rights abuses. To quote Eric Szeto from this episode: "if you look closely enough you will find problems in every industry".
Canadian Bar Association - Business and Human Rights (cba.org)
The Business of Business and Human Rights
[Start of recorded material 00:00:00]
Eric: — cut me off anytime, Julia. But another example —
Julia: No, I won't. I mean, this is so interesting, I don't want to cut you out.
Recording: This is The Every Lawyer presented by the Canadian Bar Association.
Julia: This episode of The Every Lawyer is brought to you by App4Legal a leading legal tech software editor offering your legal team a highly customizable legal management software with workflow and task automation, as well as [unintelligible 00:00:27] contract lifecycle and document automation software fit for any industry. So hi, I'm Julia. Welcome to The Every Lawyer. In this episode, we take a look at the business of business and human rights and introduce the CBA BHR guide, we are very pleased to have with us today one of the CBA BHR guides principle authors Josh Scheinert. So welcome to The Every Lawyer Josh. We're very pleased to have you here with us.
Josh: Thank you.
Julia: And of course, there's a star of the show, the CBA BHR guide, providing in depth actionable guidance for the Canadian legal profession on BHR. But before we get to that, we need to introduce the business of business and human rights. And to do that we have invited investigative journalist, Eric Szeto, known for his work with W5, CTV and CBC Marketplace. So welcome to The Every Lawyer, Eric. We're very pleased to have you here today with us.
Julia: Thanks for having me.
Eric: Is it the interest in this issue or the incidence of abuse or both that are on the rise right now?
Eric: It’s a good question. I think, whether it's interest in the issue or instance on the rise, I just can't say for sure. But I do know, if you look close enough, there are problems in every industry. And, you know, perhaps we're hearing more about it because, you know, I think from a consumer perspective, expectations have shifted. It's not about the quality of goods anymore. It's about the quality of human work behind them. So I think that's part of the equation as well. And you look at, you know, a lot of major companies now, they all have corporate social responsibility policies, you know, whether they adhere to them or not is another question. So, so yeah, I can't say for sure. But I do know that, you know, this, these types of issues do, if you look close enough, exist in every industry.
Julia: Josh?
Josh: I think there's a combination of factors that have converged at this moment. One is over the past several years, the discussion about what we expect from our corporations has broadened specifically around the environment to the climate change, a lot of people have discussed ESG, and environment, social and governance factors. And so human rights fits neatly within the S of ESG. And at the same time, the pandemic put the spotlight on supply chains in a way that nothing else had in the past. And all of a sudden, everyone's talking about supply chains, consumers, businesses, regulators, everyone is trying to figure out where are our supply chain? Who's involved in our supply chains? Where are the materials coming from? Where are the problems along this chain? And that's provided us further opportunity to examine where our goods are coming from, who they're coming from. And so I think the talk about supply chains over the past several years has really opened the door for us to have this conversation.
Julia: Why does the Canadian legal profession need a business and human rights guide?
Josh: I think because it's a new issue. It's not, you know, I was in law school a long time ago, 15 or so years ago, and this wasn't something that was taught. The notion that businesses have a responsibility to people, besides their consumers, or their shareholders, or their direct owners is not new. But the take up around that and the amount of people who are now supporting that notion has really grown over the past several years. And so lawyers weren't necessarily focusing on that when they were providing their legal advice to their clients, because it wasn't one of the traditional areas of legal advice that a business would get. So as this area of law took off, and really developed, and that was something that happened at the international stage, not nationally here in Canada, many other jurisdictions advanced at a faster pace than we did here in Canada.
And so as a result, the Canadian legal profession wasn't part of a discussion, really, that was happening at a global level, at the UN or at different regional bodies. And now we're in a situation where, you know, business and human rights law is real. It exists in jurisdictions around the world. There are laws, there are lawsuits, there are pledges that businesses have made in various disclosures, and the Canadian legal community needs to meet — needs to learn what exactly this means, what it means for their clients, and how it should impact the way they provide the, you know, traditional advice to their business clients.
Julia: What are some of the higher profile examples of Canadian business connections to human rights abuses in recent years?
Eric: Josh, you mentioned this earlier, but the pandemic was really kind of a driving force for showing issues in supply chains, and really bringing to light what is a supply chain. At the top of my head, you know, and this is stuff that we haven't reported, but there’s been really great reporting done in Canada, in the US, but I think about migrant workers who had come to Canada, working on our farms, picking our food and the conditions they faced during the pandemic. But I think most notably was, and I think everyone's read about this, but the way Amazon workers are being treated during COVID, right? Forced, you know, not forced, but working long hours without proper protections during COVID, which led to outbreaks across I think it was in the US, and I think maybe some in Canada, if I recall correctly. But in both examples, you know, companies were called out for their treatment of workers during what was kind of a very tumultuous and profitable time for some of these companies.
Josh: Eric’s focused on examples here. And without touching on specific companies, what I would say is also recently, the war in Ukraine, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused a lot of companies here in Canada to question what are our connections to the Russian government and our operations in Russia? And what does that mean? And do we want to be a part of that? And its forced companies at the boardroom level to really have serious conversations about where they're going to prioritize growth versus values that they say they adhere to.
Other recent situations around the world, there's the treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province, which Canadian government has labeled as genocide, that's led to a host of new restrictions around the world regarding import of goods that have a suspected connection to forced labour in Xinjiang province. That has caused a lot of companies, here in Canada and globally, to examine their supply chain to ensure they're not connected to that. So that would be another high profile example where there's potential to have a connection to abuse.
Eric: You know, for us and our team, in the past few years, we've been able to report on this issue, human rights and business, human rights supply chains and consumer kind of end product aspects of this. And, you know, we wanted to bring awareness to this. Tt's just the type of reporting required to do this type of work is so hard, and very few outlets can do this. So we were very, very fortunate at the CBC to be able to do this type of work. But one of the examples that we worked on recently, you know, this is during the height of the second wave, and we started investigating PPE supply chains and found major issues with forced labour, especially in the glove sector. So this is material used by all sorts of healthcare workers, right, for everything from giving vaccinations to swab tests. Like, you know, one doctor described this PPE is something that kept them alive, it saved lives.
What we knew is this PPE was being manufactured in Malaysia under these forced labour conditions that we were able to run by numerous experts and legal scholars. And it was ending up around the world, including Canada. And what we discovered also was some of these importers had contracts with the federal government supply our healthcare system. So that was a revelation for us, especially to see that there's these contracts here with the federal government, and some issues obviously overseas. And that was one of the big examples recently that we looked at. And more recently is, to what Josh mentioned earlier, we looked at Canada's food supply chain. We looked at, as an entry point, the multibillion dollar tomato trade to kind of get into the food system. We wanted to find the human stories, just where we get our food, you know, something we're so often removed from because our only point of contact with food is our grocery stores.
Our journey took us around the world. We were in Mexico; we were in Asia. And what we learned is, China is one of the biggest producers of tomato paste in the world and much of those tomatoes come from, as Josh was saying earlier, with some of the forced labour aspects, is Xinjiang, the center of one of the worst human rights atrocities going on right now. Millions of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities subject to re-education, internment, torture, sexual assault, forced labour by the Chinese Communist Party. Through our investigation, we can say with confidence that Uyghurs were being subject to these forced labour conditions. I recall one Uyghur we spoke to, we interviewed, you know, they were able to escape China, but he told us about his family who was still picking tomatoes in China every year, you know, almost a dozen family members. And if they didn't do this, if they didn't do what was requested of them, they would be fined or imprisoned, you know, or even worse, sent to these camps.
Our next question was, where these products go? Where are they ending up? Are they ending up in Canadian grocery stores? And so for us to uncover this complicated and complex web, you know, of supply chains, what we learned really, and I can sum it up very quickly, is here are these tomato products being produced in Xinjiang. They would never come directly to Canada; they would go to intermediary countries for further processing. So, India, Italy, the Philippines, you know, these are turned into sauces, Ketchups. And then they're being shipped around the world in places like Canada. And we saw them almost kind of every shelf on almost every major supermarket in Canada. Same for Mexican workers who picked our fresh tomatoes, we saw problems with conditions they faced and they supplied. These companies they work for supply Canadian grocers. The issues are complex. The issues exist. I do want to note that of the grocery stores we found these products connected to, many of them also had human rights policies.
Julia: How long does it take, you know, for instance, for this story to uncover the web of all the supply chain? Because it must take a lot of time to build all this story. And is it essential to have like a hidden camera? Or to have a covered approach when you're investigating? Or do you have like those information, I guess, you cannot have them like on a plate, you need to probably be a bit undercover to do that.
Eric: You know, this story was — it took us seven months to do. One of the longest projects I've worked on. But it was so multifaceted. And to your question, there was an element of undercover reporting that we needed to do for this story because this is information companies, you know, brokers, people just do not want to divulge. And so, in this line of work that we do, especially these types of stories, surreptitious reporting is so critical to an investigation. You know, like how do you get a company or someone to talk to you about committing wrongdoing or tell you the unvarnished truth, you know? How would you do that without kind of beings more surreptitious about it? So, you know, I think for our tomato investigation, we want to get access to these tomato plants in Xinjiang. We couldn't go there, of course, because of COVID. And there's just a crazy safety element to this. But what we wanted to do was get access to these companies that we knew were likely contributing to human rights abuses to the Uyghur population.
So we spent a number of months. We set up a fake company, a fake website. We learned how to become tomato brokers. So we learned the lingo of becoming a tomato broker, like it’s going to school to become a tomato trader. We even created contracts to fake access to, you know, fake business with these companies. We contacted them, we, you know, we made it seemed like we were legit. And we got access to these companies in Xinjiang, we got these virtual tours, and access that I don't think anybody's ever had before to these tomato fields that they pick tomatoes from, to factories that I don't think anybody, unless you're going there in person as real business people, are getting access to. It was incredible.
Like, you know, I think through that undercover reporting, we were able to confirm what companies they exported their tomatoes to, what countries they went to. We were able to confront them about some of the allegations that were made about Uyghur abuse. And although, you know, they all denied this, but these are things that we would not be able to do in person in a more direct route without the [therepticious? 00:12:58] reporting. Could we have gotten those answers and that access without that undercover aspect? I don't think so.
Julia: No, yeah, I feel — wow, this is very like — I feel like you’re a spy or something. It’s very impressive.
Eric: I do feel like that sometimes.
Julia: Yeah, right? I'm sure you do. And to quote directly from the very great CBA BHR guide, businesses, including their subsidiaries and partners are not isolated from the societies in which they operate. Nor are they insulated from events occurring in places where they secure raw materials and other goods. Could we talk more about the word isolated here today? Quote/unquote “isolated.”
Josh: So when we say isolated, it's, we're not saying that you are ignoring, deliberately, what has gone on in the world around you, but no one has really turned your attention to it. And so now what business and human rights as a field is trying to do is take away those blinders, stop that tunnel vision and say, OK, there's regulatory compliance, and you have to follow what local laws require of you, and what your home jurisdiction laws require of you. But there's more, there's a broader community here. And if you're operating in a state that doesn't have strong regulation when it comes to social and environmental human rights protections, then we expect you to recognize that and do more.
Really, this has been an effort to get companies and their legal advisors, and also governments, Canada and governments around the world, to think more comprehensively about what does it mean for a business, oftentimes a multinational with significant resources and a significant ability to have either an adverse or a positive impact on the local community. What does it mean for us to operate there? What does it mean for us to be connected to this place or this community?
Eric: Just to jump in, I think, Josh, to you know, I was just thinking when you're saying that is companies often don't do those things unless they're forced to. They're not willingly going to spend more money to add more layers of bureaucracy or, you know, work to something that, you know, I guess I'm just trying to think of, you know, when you say that I just think, from what I've encountered, it's often unless they're faced with that problem, they're not going to deal with it, or they won't deal with it at the forefront. But maybe I'm just totally wrong on this. But tell me what you think. Yeah.
Josh: No, I don't disagree. But I think we're almost talking at two different points here. I think what we're seeing kind of run parallel to each other, because first is what is business and human rights in the field trying to do? So, very directly, it's trying to ensure that transnational businesses are not complicit and are causing or connected to human rights abuses. And when those human rights abuses do happen, that there's access to a remedy for individuals whose human rights have been violated. But in doing that, more broadly, what it's trying to do is, I think, like I said before, get businesses and governments and their regulators to think more comprehensively about what business operations mean, and what they can do. And then what you said follows neatly because then it's, OK, so how do we get a business to do that? Is having a conversation enough? Maybe for some businesses it is. And maybe for other businesses, it won't be.
Oftentimes, businesses will say, you know, I have competing responsibilities, we have limited resources, our shareholders are demanding this or our board is demanding that. Can you point me to a regulation so I can show people that, yes, I have to do this? This is what I'm required to do, either by the regulation in my home jurisdiction, whether that's Canada or anywhere else, or by the host country's jurisdiction. Because right now, I don't have the resources, like you said, to go above and beyond what I'm required to do. So I don't think our points are necessarily mutually exclusive.
Julia: Where do you think it comes from, this sense of being disconnected from society?
Josh: So I don't want to speak for businesses, because I'm not, A, a business person and, B, that's a broad term. But what I would say is, you know, I think traditionally there was a very specific notion of what a business was, who was responsible for and what its objective was to do. I think over the past couple of decades, that's been harder to support that the business is this isolated, you know, entity that's just a profit making machine or goods producing machines. So I think businesses, for the most part, all recognize that they are a part of the communities in which they operate.
First off, if you're operating anywhere, you're going to be dependent on that community for employees, for support. If you're just sourcing the good from a local community, you're dependent on that community to produce the good. So you're not isolated. Nor do I think that businesses are indifferent to the fate, for the most part, of the communities and places in which they operate. Because as much as there might have been and still be, to an extent, competing factors driving business decisions about ways in which they operate. Ultimately, I don't think most businesses want to find out that we were operating in that factory. I don't think businesses want to know that we have sold those goods to consumers. So it's taking that end goal of, you don't want to be this company, you want to be this company instead. So how do we bring your operations further in line with that objective? If they're not already there.
Julia: And for decades, profit motives and economic expediency have been seen as the great equalizers and the only things that can provide an objective basis for public and corporate policy. Is a profit motive solely to blame here?
Josh: I'll just come in quickly saying, no. There's also the consumption model. You know, we can't just talk about businesses. Businesses serve a number of stakeholders. They serve shareholders, they serve owners if they're privately held, but they also serve consumers. And we, you know, we had the discussion back when I was a child about sweatshops in the apparel industry. I'm not sure what happened to that discussion. I'm not sure it ever ended conclusively with a result or a commitment. But tell consumers that if you want this good produced ethically, that you want this worker treated responsibly in a manner that you would accept for yourself, then you're going to have to pay more for that. And that's a very big part of the conversation that's missing, I think.
Eric: I was thinking the same thing. You know, I'm going to flip this and say what role does a consumer have kind of to this race to the bottom? You know, if one company starts to sell something for less, people will buy the cheaper product. Another company follows suit, but the only way to make that happen and to lower prices is to cut corners, to cut, you know, labour costs, and it kind of is a vicious cycle to that kind of that rock bottom price, right? And so who's the one that gets squeezed? It's the worker at the other end with the least leverage because consumers don't want to pay more, so yeah, it's true. It's bringing awareness, it's making people think twice about that 99 cent product and why it might be so cheap.
Julia: [French 00:19:49] in French, which I would say in English is like buying is voting, or something like that. So then [unintelligible 00:19:55] the impact of when you buy something, and to think about it very much before buying. So, I do think as well, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, I would say, I would agree. I mean, I think education and bringing public awareness about supply chains is kind of the work we were trying to do, creating this stuff. The more you think — the more you know about it, the more you’ll think twice, you know. I think that's definitely part of it.
Julia: Like a guy, for instance. So about lawyers, themselves and their clients. Another question is something that I know come in my work as well, I guess I work in human rights as well. And something that can come up often is, you know, the idea that there might be a different cultural understanding of what is a human rights abuse? And do you think this can have an impact?
Josh: I'll just jump in first, as the lawyer who studied human rights and international human rights, there is no different Declaration of Human Rights depending on where an individual lives or where they're born. Human rights are universal rights to equality, to dignity, to have your life and privacy and family respected. Their work conditions, that's not subjective. How that necessarily plays out in different parts of the world, of course, we recognize that there can be differences around work conditions, or remuneration, for that matter. But no, human rights are human rights. We're all entitled to them. Full stop.
Julia: Yeah, totally. I would not add anything. Thank you very much.
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Recording: This is The Every Lawyer presented by the Canadian Bar Association.
Julia: So now, finally, as promised, let's have a closer look at the CBAs BHR guide. First, can you please walk us through the process of creating this guide? Where does it come from?
Josh: Sure. There was one of the things — let me start from the beginning. One of the things some other lawyers in Canada that I was connected to, would frequently talk about was that we wish there was greater awareness within the legal profession for this emerging area of law. And business and human rights is not unique in that sense. Any new area in the law is going to take time for us to catch on in the international field that related to, you know, anti-bribery and corruption, questions around compliance and sanctions, all that kind of stuff. So business and human rights is not unique in that sense. But we thought, you know, how do we bring this about more quickly? And then there was a report as part of the United Nations Business and Human Rights process, for lack of a better term, and they actually singled out business lawyers as being resistant to notions of business and human rights legal advice because it conflicted with what they thought their traditional role and responsibility was towards their clients.
So then me and some other lawyers got together and we said, OK, let's try and put something together for the legal community here to ensure that Canadian lawyers are not being seen as the resistance. We wanted to join up and put our mark out there with other bar associations, with other bar associations around the world. In the UK, in the US, in Japan, the International Bar Association have all come out and put together similar guides like this for their members to ensure that they are ready to provide this type of advice. And then together with a colleague of mine, Claudia Feldkamp, she's a lawyer here in Toronto at Fasken’s, who has been very active on this for years, we've put together a small working group of other lawyers with specialized knowledge in this field, and together with some other CBA volunteer. So we drafted the guide.
Julia: I looked at the guide, and I understand that it is divided in different sections. Could you tell our listeners a little bit more how they can navigate it? Because I feel there's many sections where if you want to look at some topics in particular.
Josh: Sure. The guide is meant to be very practical, and an introduction to the field. It is, what is business and human rights? What does this mean for a Canadian lawyer? You know, we talk about Canadian lawyers’ professional obligations, and different rules of professional conduct that we have to go by, and how providing this type of advice fits within that. So, you know, we situate business and human rights as something within the Canadian legal framework that lawyers should be paying attention to. And then we answer practically, well, what does this mean? Number one, why is it important to me and to my clients? So what are some of the different risk areas? And we run through those different types of whether it's legal risk or financial risk. We go over the field, how it's evolving, different ways that business and human rights is being regulated, both in Canada and globally, at legislation, regulations around trade and procurement. And then we give an overview of, you know, specifically what's been happening here in Canada.
And we explore the main factors that have been influencing business and human rights here in Canada. And we talk about legislative and policy initiatives. And even that is now outdated because it appears the Canadian government is now one vote away in the House of Commons from passing a law related to business and human rights. So we'll have to have an update. We talk about disputes. There's been a number of, you know, high profile litigations here in Canada, where foreign litigants have tried to bring a lawsuit against the Canadian company, saying our human rights have been abused abroad in connection with your business operations. And then we talk about different international factors that have been influencing Canada. And so this is all to give lawyers just that framework from which they can appreciate this is real, it's happening, Here's the basics that I need to know. And it gives them almost a guide or a roadmap to do a deeper dive for when they spot potential issues, or a need to give that kind of advice to their clients.
Julia: I was honestly very impressed. I mean, and when you say practical, I feel —
Josh: I would hope so.
Josh: You know, seriously, it was very — I looked at it and I was like, because you know, you have links, hyperlinks, you can go, you can go check it out. It's very, very easy to use as well. Very clear for a rookie like me. I mean, it was very nice. I really encourage listeners to go and read it, or read the parts that they think would be interesting for them. But my question was, because I saw it was in 2021. So I was like, OK, so it's probably very up to date. But how will you keep it up to date? Do you expect to do it every year or to maybe have every two years?
Josh: We haven't settled on a time period. But we've [disguided? 00:27:28], I combined discussed and decided. But we had discussed, you know, about once a year at least, that the guide should be updated. And it came out I think in December of 2021. And, you know, I don't know the parliamentary timetable in the schedule for bringing bills to a vote and the draft bill is now with a house standing committee. So I also don't know how long that takes. But there's probably a decent chance that by the end of this calendar year, so that would be a one-year anniversary, that we could provide an update to reflect any legislative developments here in Canada. So it will be updated. And we want it to be something that people can keep returning to. It's also going to be easier to update different links, you know, if a new report comes out, you know, we'll just, we'll add that to the resources section.
Julia: And talking about Canada, so do you feel like Canada is setting the example when it comes to preventing business complicity in human rights violations?
Josh: That depends on who you speak to.
Julia: OK.
Josh: I’ll be curious to hear what Eric has to say having gone abroad and really thought about this and reported on it. I would say Canada has experimented with several initiatives to try and regulate and enhance business conduct abroad, vis a vis human rights protections. They had a number of strategies, going back to Prime Minister Harper. And it has culminated right now in what appears to be a piece of legislation. While Canada has experimented with its different initiatives other jurisdictions have come out with more forceful legislation right out of the gate and did not spend as much time trying to come up with a policy initiative minus legislation. So other jurisdictions came out and recognize, much like Eric said, that without a law, without a requirement to do something, businesses might be a little reticent to do this.
So whether Canada has a led or not, up until now, I think depends on one's perspective. But what I would say is it appears that Canada is ready to join other like-minded nations in ensuring that businesses going forward are thinking about and taking these issues seriously. The question will then be what happens with the legislation? How well is it adhered to? If there are serious gaps in adherence to the legislation, will there be enforcement? What will civil society do to shine a spotlight on businesses that are not fully complying with the legislation or whose disclosures reveal problems that are not being properly addressed? So we’re setting ourselves up for the potential to do good and be in a good place. Where we go from there remains to be seen.
Eric: Yeah, I think just to the original question, is Canada setting an example? You know, we weren't leading the way for sure. And I think if you talked to many advocates, they still believe Canada is quite behind the US, you know, in many respects, leads the world in this. They tell me that more needs to be done for supply chain due diligence and lacking laws, like Josh was saying, modern slavery legislation that would force companies basically to produce annual reports, right, on the supply chains to make sure there's no forced labour, amongst other things. And there's been criticisms for that, but, and a lot of starts and turns and twists and turns for this legislation, but it's something.
I think there's been progress made in the sense of when the new CUSMA agreement, the new North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, here was an amendment to our customs Tariff Act, basically, prohibiting forced labour goods from entering Canada. That that was monumental, like, you know, like back before then, we didn't have that type of rule in place. Like I don't know if it’s a rule or if it's a policy or a law, but we didn't have that. And it was a new regime for the federal government. I think this is a new framework for the federal government as well, kind of catching up I think a little bit with the US, I think with Australia or France, I think they've lead a little bit like that.
But you know, it's funny, because I look back at this and part of our stories when we looked at the PPE stuff in the tomato trade is, OK, federal government has this amendment to prohibit forced labour goods now coming into Canada because of CUSMA. Have they done anything about it? Have they enacted it? Have they used the trade tariff? And they, despite our reporting, it’d never been used, and only think, last year, late last year, had it been used once and it was for a shipment that came from China. I think, was clothing. It's one of those things where we have these rules in place, but they're not being used. So I think it's progress. But I think, you know, we've talked to many advocates, there's always more that can be done.
Josh: And that's the thing, you know, we talk about resources that businesses need to allocate to this. There's also, on the regulatory side, resources have to come there. One of the things people wondered about before Canada had legislation was, what — is passing legislation any use if we don't have the means to enforce it? You know, we have to be realistic about what our capacities are. We're not the US, we don't have the level of customs enforcement that the US does. The US Department of Labor, you know, first off produces a list of goods globally produced or suspected to be produced with forced or child labour. We don't do that, we don't have the means to do that, to go — and they do this by good, by location, by factory level. We're just not at that level. And so we also have to be realistic and practical in our outlook. And that's not to say you just give up and throw in the towel. Absolutely not. But different countries will have to approach this differently.
Eric: The US definitely had a head start. I mean, it's 100 years, right? But in the sense of there's a new framework involved, and absolutely, you're totally right. How long does it take to get that in motion to make it so that it's effective, that it's having an impact? That's for sure a factor. Because it's such a new regimen, for sure, that I think it's having — that's why it may be taking a little bit longer.
Josh: I will also say that is, one other thing that has, I think, delayed this has been the pace of the courts and litigation. The litigations all moved very slowly when foreign groups were suing Canadian companies. A number of them settled, which is revealing in and of itself, you know, the companies did not — it was decided that those cases should not go to trial, and that a settlement should be reached. But that also meant that in all these years where many people, including in civil society, and maybe even in government, you know, were waiting to see what are the courts going to say about the liability and any duty of care that's owed to foreign groups by a Canadian business? There's no firm pronouncement on that yet, you know, nearly a decade into these types of litigations. And so that's been frustrating.
Julia: So well, thank you actually. I love it because both of your answers are very, you know, it gives a good idea because that's kind of a broad question, is Canada [unintelligible 00:34:11]? And I kind of feel like you're both giving good views. So thank you very much. My last question for you about the BHR guide. So now that the guide is on the CBAs website for free, what impacts do you expect it will have on the legal practice in Canada?
Josh: There’s expect and hope. Those are two different things. I hope that people will read this and people will react. You know, there's a natural human reaction that says, yes, of course, this makes sense. I want to do this. I want to be a part of this movement. I want to be a part of advising my clients to help be more positive corporate citizens, both here and abroad. What do I expect will happen? I think, realistically, hopefully more lawyers pick this up and say, this is something I'm going to keep in the back of my head. And if an issue arises, this can maybe give me a roadmap as to how we can navigate our way through a challenging situation and for them to know that they have a role to play as lawyers in assisting their clients, navigate them.
Julia: Well, thank you very much both of you, Eric and Josh, for your time and your help as well in producing this episode of The Every Lawyer. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Give it a rating or get back to us directly via cba.org and hit subscribe for more CBA podcasts.
Recording: This is The Every Lawyer presented by the Canadian Bar Association.
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